


Untangle My Roots

by writingfordayz



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Architect Allura, Baker Hunk, Best Friends, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Carpenter Keith, Carpenter Shiro, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Humor, Klance au, Lots of Angst, M/M, Roommates, Slow Burn, Social Worker Lance, Voltron, klance, klangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15232938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfordayz/pseuds/writingfordayz
Summary: Lance and Keith have to learn how to navigate life after college with new jobs, new roommates, and new feelings.





	Untangle My Roots

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here's the first chapter! I've been going over this story in my head every night for the past few weeks and finally decided to write it out! I hope ya'll enjoy this!

Keith was never the sentimental type; Lance had gotten to know this pretty well as he’d watched the amount of things he’d collected over the years total an unsurprising eight items. Lance remembers when Keith got each of them, one every year since they’d first met. From his bed across the room, he watched as Keith packed each item into a cardboard box, the last being a large grey rock. 

 

“It doesn’t feel as heavy now.” Keith commented, tossing it in his hand a bit.

 

_ Keith was stuck sitting behind a cotton candy booth watching as people played games, road rides, and stuffed their faces with greasy food. It was disgusting. He was only there because Shiro had encouraged him to go, but in blunt honesty, a carnival is the most meaningless event in the world. That’s what Keith had argued as he was being shoved out the door an hour earlier. People were stupid enough to blow all their money on games they’d never win and stand in lines for rides that were ten times longer than the actual ride itself.  _

 

_ The worst part of the situation, was that he felt completely alone. All the faces that passed him were foreign. I mean come on, people go to carnivals with their friends, not to make them. But his family just didn’t get that, so here he was, waiting out the next hour before he could go home and insist he tried his best.  _

 

_ “Oh come on! That’s totally rigged! I hit it for sure!”  _

 

_ The shouting caught his attention because even with the sound of the roller coaster clanking by behind him, Keith heard the voice loud and clear. The boy was about his age, a lot tanner though in comparison to himself. Keith felt like a vampire ever since his family moved to Arizona, and it was clear this guy’s lived here his whole life. The boy tugged at his frayed baseball hat in frustration as he argued with the carnival booth attendant.  _

 

_ “Look kid you’ve got one more ball. Just throw it already.” he said annoyed. _

 

_ Keith watched closely as the boy picked up the ball and threw it perfectly in the center of three bottles. Although they rocked back a bit, none of them fell, much to the boy’s disappointment. _

 

_ “Come on!! I hit those fair and square! All I want is the freaking polar bear for my little sister.” _

 

_ “Sorry kid. You don’t knock em down, you don’t win.”  _

 

_ “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he shouted. _

 

_ Sleazy is one way to describe him, but Keith settled for a simpler adjective: asshole. Said asshole had cheated the boy out of his money, and all he was trying to do was win a stuffed polar bear for his younger sister. On top of that, he’d hit the stack of bottles without a doubt.  _

 

_ Keith unconsciously clenched his fists and pushed himself to his feet. Although he wasn’t too keen on voluntarily making friends, he did want to do something about that attendant. Strolling on over, Keith slammed down a five dollar bill. _

 

_ “Let me try” he insisted. _

 

_ The boy was taller now that Keith was closer, his messy brown hair sticking out from under his hat that he’d just flipped backwards while fidgeting in frustration. He was Keith’s definition of Arizona: tan skin littered with freckles, face and arms in all, with bright blue eyes to offset it.  _

 

_ Keith’s never felt so self conscious in his life. He was never able to tan, always burning to a crisp in a matter of minutes if he chose to venture outside during the summer, and he’d just gotten the worst hair cut of his life that was one step away from a complete buzzcut. Honestly he should’ve just kept his mouth shut when they were moving in because one complaint about how hot it was earned him a trip to the barbers. Before that, his hair was beginning to rest on his shoulders, and although his parents let that slide back in Chicago, they claimed he’d get overheated here if he kept it. The boy eyed him up and down, squinting in confusion. _

 

_ “Don’t bother, there’s no way you can actually win.” he warned.  _

 

_ “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith questioned. _

 

_ “Well for one, it’s 100% rigged, and two, you don’t exactly look like…” _

 

_ “Like what?” _

 

_ “Like throwing is your type of thing.” He finished.  _

 

_ “We’ll see about that, Arizona.“ Keith shot back as the man smugly tossed him three balls. He stumbled to catch them, and two tumbled to the ground. The guy laughed, taking a drag of his cigarette.  _

 

_ “Sure, good luck kid.” he mocked. _

 

_ It was hard not to doubt Keith’s athletic abilities when that happened, and the boy wondered how he could possibly throw in a straight line if he couldn’t even catch the balls to begin with. Not to mention Keith didn’t exactly exude an ‘I’m athletically inclined’ aurora. He had on his favorite jeans which were one of three identical pairs: black and super skinny. They went perfect with his black band tee shirt and was absolutely horrible paired with the 103 degree heat.  _

 

_ Bending over to pick up the balls, Keith’s hand gravitated towards a large grey rock in the dirt. He picked it up, running his thumb over jagged edges, and before he could even register what he was doing, the rock was hurtling towards the bottles. All three shattered, sending shards of glass into a pool on the ground.  _

 

_ Silence surrounded the group as Keith’s heartbeat raced, his hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline. The worse thing he’d ever done up until then was cheat on a test, and he just jumped all the way to vandalism.  _

 

_ “Would you look at that, I did knock them over.” he stated, whether that was meant for the extremely pissed off man or shocked into silence boy, he wasn’t sure, but he took the opportunity to reach up and yank a polar bear down off the shelf. _

 

_ “Hey! Who the hell do you think you are kid?!” the man yelled, starting to climb over the counter.  _

 

_ Oh no no no no no no. Keith’s mind went into overdrive, and instead of fixing the situation, his hand flew up, flipping the attendant off. He spun around, tossing the bear over his shoulder in what he hoped was in the vicinity of Arizona, and sprinted towards the hoards of people in the center of the fair grounds.   _

 

_ He was almost sure that the man had lost him back at the carnival, but just for good measure, he’d kept up the pace until he saw his house down the street. His parents were in the front yard pulling weeds as he mentally checked off what he was supposed to have done: _

 

_ Went the the carnival, check. _

 

_ Played a stupid carnival game, check. _

 

_ Tried to make a friend, check. _

 

_ They couldn’t possibly be mad then, he thought as he started up his driveway. _

 

_ “Hey! Wait up!” _

 

_ Keith froze, his parents turning to look too. He hoped that any god in the world would take pity on him. That it wasn’t the booth attendant about to punch him in the eye and get him grounded for the next two weeks. But when he turned around to meet his fate, his eyes connected with bright blue ones.  _

 

_ The boy from the carnival slowed to a stop in front of him, panting as if he’d just run a marathon. _

 

_ “Geeze man...you can really…run.” the boy said in between gasps. _

 

_ “Uh.. thanks?”  _

 

_ Keith didn’t really know how to respond. Why would this guy run half way across town to catch up with him?  _

 

_ When he could finally breathe normally, he held out the rock Keith had thrown.  _

 

_ “You grabbed it?” Keith questioned as he took it. _

 

_ “Yeah man! I win the polar bear, and you win the rock of destruction!” _

 

_ Keith snorted, “Rock of destruction? Really?” _

 

_ “Yes really! That was freaking awesome! Hey, do you want to come over and hang out? I live just down the street.” He said pointing in the opposite direction.  _

 

_ Keith glanced down at himself, sweaty emo boy in all and looked back at Arizona’s bright pink and blue tank-top-shorts combo. They were worlds apart.  _

 

_ “Are you sure?” he asked kind of surprised. He’d never been good at making friends, and they hadn’t exactly gotten along five minutes ago.  _

 

_ “Yeah dude. I’ve got a playstation if that sweetens the deal.” he said wiggling his eyebrows. Well shit, if Keith had known that demolishing things and screwing over assholes was all it took to get along with someone, then he would’ve started that a long time ago.  _

 

_ “Hey mom, I’m gonna go over to...” Keith paused looking expectantly at him. _

 

_ “Lance!” _

 

_ “...to my friend Lance’s house for a bit.” _

 

Lance looked around at their empty dorm. Not even three hours ago it had been full of all their belongings and set up in a way that offered “maximum space” according to Keith. He had learned a few tricks in one of his classes, and after measuring every piece of furniture in the room, he’d convinced Lance to help him rearrange. Both beds were against one wall with risers under the legs that gave them just enough room to shove their dresses underneath. Both of the desks were put in the corner, back to back. The most important things in their day to day life should be easily accessible, according to Keith, thus their single gaming chair and little tv were placed in the center.  

 

Now all of that was gone and the room had returned to its standard setup. Where the desks use to be, there were now very visible beer stains on the rug. The wall behind the door had a large faded square from where they’d hung a poster of a mustang, something Lance had insisted was the least suspicious image to hide the gaping hole in the wall. There were tiny nibbles around the edges of the molding from their bunny that Lance insisted was a therapy pet that they absolutely had to have at the beginning of their junior year. Thinking about it now, Lance insisted on a lot of things that were ridiculous, but Keith never questioned him because when they had a chance to choose a different dorm their sophomore year, he’d opted to have the same one, and Lance didn’t complain one bit. Nor did he complain the next two years either. 

 

“Ya know, I’m gonna miss this place.” Keith admitted. 

 

Lance slung an arm around his shoulder and said, “Yeah… I’m not. We could never get rid of that weird tuna fish smell, the air conditioning never worked right after that one night, and I need more room to like...function.” 

 

Keith rolled his eyes and pushed past him out the door. It was hard for Keith to move on after having his college routine maintained for four years, and he’d probably be freaking out more if it weren’t for the fact that Lance was moving on too, with him. 

 

“Yeah well I hope this new place is decent. I still can’t believe you picked out an apartment on your own-” 

 

He stopped when he reached the end of the hallway and realized Lance wasn’t by his side anymore. He was still in front of their dorm, ex dorm, holding his girlfriend Dani around the waist. 

 

Keith couldn’t stand the girl. Sure she seemed cute and bubbly to everyone else, her black hair cut in a bob and a smile always plastered on her face, but every time Lance came back from spending time with her, he was just… different. Keith could never find out what was wrong with her no matter how hard he tried, and Lance insisted that they were doing fantastic whenever he asked. 

 

Well it couldn’t be that fantastic if Lance ran in two weeks earlier, panicking because Dani wanted to live with him. Keith still can’t shake the desperation in his words when he said, “You still want to live together right?!”

 

Keith hadn’t given much thought about where he was going to live after they’d graduated up until then, but living with Lance definitely felt like the best option. 

 

Keith was already set to work with his brother building houses being the full fledged degree carrying carpenter he was. Shiro’s wife, Allura, was an architect, and together they owned their own business, designing and building homes from the ground up. So Keith knew he was going to stay in his hometown, but Lance… he wasn’t really sure where he’d end up. 

 

After changing majors five times, Lance had managed to graduate with a degree in Social Work, and Keith found it fitting. Lance cared about people in such an intimate way that he connected with complete strangers in a matter of seconds, and essentially spending the rest of his life helping families and children was a perfect fit for him. He’d already had job offers halfway through his last semester, some of which were out of state, but the day he burst in panicking was the same day he’d leased an apartment and the same day he’d accepted a job as a social worker in their hometown, all in under five hours.

 

What he wasn’t too happy about was the fact that their apartment already had two other people living in it. Lance insisted it was the only way they could afford an apartment up to his standards, and that they seemed cool so this whole thing would be fine. Well Keith wasn’t convinced, but Lance had signed the lease before he even told him he’d found them a potential apartment. So here he was, sitting in the passenger's seat of a moving truck waiting for Lance to drive them home. 

 

In the rear view mirror, Keith watched as Lance walked out with Dani and said his usual goodbye, finishing with a kiss to the side of her head while they hugged. As soon as he’s walking towards the truck, away from Dani, Keith can see the change. He goes from smiling and happy to somewhere between upset and guilty, but when he takes his place next to Keith, he doesn’t say a word, just puts the key in the ignition.

 

The ride there is quiet, but the tension that seemed to be there at first had dissolved the longer they drove. Keith had learned that Lance would find his way out of whatever maze there was in his head on his own. Asking questions and prodding only made it worse. So Keith contributed by humming songs until Lance plugged in his phone and began guessing them **.** By the time they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment complex, Lance was screaming a duet with Pink. 

 

“I’m amazed I’m not deaf after every time you do that.” Keith complained.

 

Lance jumped out laughing. “You’re just jealous that I can sing better than you.”

 

“If by better, you mean louder and more obnoxiously then yes, you can.”

 

Lance didn’t even hear the last part; he was already ten feet ahead, running up the first flight of stairs. Keith followed behind until Lance stopped in front of what must be their door: apartment 405. Lance lifted his hand to knock, but the door flew open before he could make contact and two hands locked around their wrists, tugging them inside. Keith stumbled in as the door shut behind them. A girl a couple years younger than him stared up at the two through a pair of frames and tired eyes. A messy bun of brown hair rested on top of her head, a couple strands sticking awkwardly out in various directions. Saying she looked exhausted would be an understatement. 

 

“Alright I have two minutes to talk, then I need to go back to work. I’m Katie, but you can call me Pidge, don’t ask. Hunk’s in the kitchen and probably will be until after we go to bed. He fills personal orders and kind of gets carried away so I suggest you keep some snacks in your room in case you get hungry and can’t find your way through the war zone. This is my room by the front door, and Hunk’s is through the door in the back left of the kitchen; we thought it’d be best so he could make it to bed without passing out in the hallway after baking. Trust me, we made that mistake once, and he still has a scar from that night. Your rooms are the first two on the left side of the hallway, and we all share the bathroom at the end of it. We rotate cleaning duty; I got it this week, Lance next, Keith after, then back to Hunk. If you need something and my door is shut, ask Hunk. Please just leave me be until I rot in there. Got it? Cool, see you around dinner.” 


End file.
